Opinion: In today’s pages: Bernard Parks for county supervisor, the future of UC
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Today’s Op-Ed page asks UC academics and other experts for suggestions for the university system’s incoming presidnet, Mark Yudof. And columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that attacking Michelle Obama is fair game:
[T]he Illinois senator’s desire to protect his wife from criticism shows his heart’s in the right place. The question is, where is his head?If he truly finds it ‘unacceptable’ for people to criticize his wife, he might want to rethink his policy of sending her out as his chief campaign surrogate, particularly when she has proved to be such a rich source of copy for journalists and barbs for critics. And just out of curiosity, what does it mean, exactly, when a candidate finds something ‘unacceptable’? In a democracy, finding criticism unacceptable is a surefire way to drive yourself bonkers. It’s like saying you find it unacceptable that bears use the woods for a bathroom.
On the editorial page, the board endorses Bernard C. Parks for the 2nd Supervisorial District. The board also criticizes the president’s stimulus plan for excluding some legal immigrants and their spouses. And finally the board responds to ex-Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez’s claim that the media is crutinizing his spending habits because ‘they think I have to sleep under a cactus and eat from taco stands.’
Readers discuss oil companies’ high profits. Former Unocal Corp. chair Richard J. Stegemeier notes, ‘If Exxon Mobil’s senior vice president, J. Stephen Simon, donated his entire 2007 salary of $12.5 million to gas price reduction, it would lower Exxon Mobil’s pump price by 0.03 cents a gallon, or less than one cent per tank.’
*Artwork by Susan Tibbles